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Closing down Guantanamo Bay

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But it looks like they will end up closing Gitmo - doesn't mean anyone will be released, just that they'll close Gitmo and open Son of Gitmo in it's place. Mission accomplished and one campaign pledge honoured.

"I hope that the list and its references provide a useful antidote to the current scaremongering regarding the failed Christmas plane bomber, Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and his alleged ties with one - just one - of the 574 prisoners released from Guantanamo, in a Yemen based al-Qaeda cell.

This purported connection is being used by those who want the evil stain of Guantanamo to endure forever...but also to argue that no more of the Yemenis - who make up nearly half of the remaining prisoners - should be released even though the ex prisoner in question is a Saudi, even though no more than a dozen or so of the 574 prisoners released have gone on to have any involvement whatsoever with terrorism, and even though all of these were released during the presidency of George W Bush.."

In the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, for example, the decision to prosecute him in a federal court comes over six years late. Despite having confessed to his involvement in the 9/11 attacks to an al-Jazeera reporter before his capture by US forces in March 2003, he was held for three and a half years in secret prisons run by the CIA, where he was subjected to torture (including...

Worthington condemns the inquisition and torture etc. But he doesn't mention the fact that confessions obtained by torture are worthless and not to be confused with legally obtained evidence. Such nuances of democracy are difficult concepts for most on the political right to grasp.

And then there is tidbit about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's obvious guilt after having confessed to Al Jazeera's Yosri Fouda. It's a foregone conclusion at that point. Except that Chaim Kupferberg says KSM was one of several patsies fitted up for masterminding 9/11. And apparently Yosri Fouda is a self-admitted prolific liar.

"I do not really believe there is such a thing as al-Qaida, the organization; there is al-Qaida, the mind-set" -Yosri Fouda

But it looks like they will end up closing Gitmo - doesn't mean anyone will be released, just that they'll close Gitmo and open Son of Gitmo in it's place. Mission accomplished and one campaign pledge honoured.

Making plain he would fight to repeal language in the law obstructing civilian U.S. trials for Guantanamo terrorism suspects, Obama said he was left with no choice but to sign the defense authorization act for fiscal 2011.

"Despite my strong objection to these provisions, which my administration has consistently opposed, I have signed this act because of the importance of authorizing appropriations for, among other things, our military activities in 2011," Obama said in a statement.

Translation for decent human beings: "If I don't agree to sign this law, they won't let me send more soldiers to murder people in Afghanistan."

Rep. McKeon was so enthused that he vowed to keep Guantanamo Bay open at any cost, and that he would use all the powers of his new position to prevent any efforts that might lead to it even theoretically being closed at some point.

Certifiable imo. Didn't the Nazis at least allow the Red Cross to inspect the luxurious living conditions in the holiday camps for Jews and other terrorists? They could at least put on a show for the sake of propagandizing the issue. Operating on a need to know basis, and the world doesn't need to know apparently.

President Barack Obama approved Monday the resumption of military trials for detainees at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, ending a two-year ban.

It was the latest acknowledgement that the detention facility Obama had vowed to shut down within a year of taking office will remain open for some time to come.

"I strongly believe that the American system of justice is a key part of our arsenal in the war against al-Qaeda and its affiliates, and we will continue to draw on all aspects of our justice system — including Article III courts — to ensure that our security and our values are strengthened," the president said in a statement. Article III courts are civilian federal courts.

Under Obama's order, Defence Secretary Robert Gates will rescind his January 2009 ban against bringing new cases against the terror suspects at the detention facility. Closure of the facility has become untenable because of questions about where terror suspects would be held.

"It is virtually impossible to imagine how one closes Guantanamo in light of this executive order," said Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "In a little over two years, the Obama administration has done a complete about-face."

Everything is legal (not quite what he said during the campaign but hey, who believes politicians anyways).

But it looks like they will end up closing Gitmo - doesn't mean anyone will be released, just that they'll close Gitmo and open Son of Gitmo in it's place. Mission accomplished and one campaign pledge honoured.

Yeah, sure thing, abnormal, right on. Meanwhile, I think I may have been right about closing it after every detainee is dead, maybe:

Gitmo's a disgrace. it was a disgrace when the yanks, having had their mafia kleptocracy overthrown, didn't give it back.

And its a disgrace now for the myriad reasons listed above. If Eichmann could get a reasonably fair trail in public, then so should everyone else.

Gitmo stands for torture, and shitting on an array of human and legal rights; period.

Now can we, on a progressive board, refrain from using disgusting terms like "token colored fella?" or reprinting OBVIOUSLY racist photoshops, OBVIOUSLY from far right sites: the world apology tour (a refrain of the teabaggers)??? the oversized bling chain???

Huh, huh. Its ok for us to use the words and the images, we're the good guys. So what if we're using a term that used to scrawled all over toilets and water fountains in Capetown and Alabama?

Jesus Christ, Have some shame. I dont care if it is 4 years old. Where have the mods been on this one? Out for a smoke?

Here is one of my favourite images of Obama. I hope it is progressive enough for you. The man is a murderous tool of the military security complex that runs Washington and is trying to control the world. I don't fucking care what colour he is he is just as evil as the alternative when it comes to murder. Yup a WEEKLY KILL LIST is how a peace prize winner should act. Heaven forbid anyone should make fun of his Nobel Prize. You did know the bling was a medal didn't you?

I think the term 'progressive board' must be taken with more than a few grains of salt, given that progressives and their positions are regularly attacked/reviled while right-wing, reactionary positions in support of imperialist war or US imperial aims, Zionism are regularly espoused here...

Sure. Let's go the same way as the Galloway thread. If its our ally saying it, lets not call him on it, lets DEFEND it. When it becomes clear the behaviour is reprehensible, we wont be adult enough to say "Yeah, actually, George was a complete pig on this one" we'll just go silent. Never admit error, never set a standard for ourselves a little higher than that which we oppose.

Just because he is one doesn't mean his opponent would not also have been one. When people wrap themselves in the progressive mantle I feel that people on the left need to point out their hypocrisy. The Republicans are nasty war mongers but at least they don't pretend to be people of peace.

"The prisoners' lawyers, along with other experts and former detainees, are sounding the alarm over the inmates' critical condition. 'They are indeed threatening their own lives, putting their lives on the line in this heroic effort to express a sense of autonomy, outrage at being imprisoned at what can be characterized as nothing less than an American sort-of medieval torture chamber,' anthropologist Mark Mason, who studies the cultural factors behind human suffering told RT."

I wonder what the cultural factors are behind Canadians wilful indifference to such imperial barbarism?

A hunger strike by detainees who have been held for years without trial at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has grown to involve at least 25 prisoners, the Defense Department disclosed Wednesday.

That number includes eight who are being force-fed a nutritional supplement through a hose snaked into their nose while they are restrained in a chair.

There have long been about half a dozen prisoners at Guantánamo who refuse to eat and have been kept alive by force-feeding. But the number refusing meals among the population of 166 inmates has recently surged.

Never forget that the head of these fascist torturers is the liar Obama. He's visiting his best friend Netanyahu, no doubt to work out lists of more detainees.

Jeez, are they still there at Gitmo? By gum I'll bet the inquisition has given them mind transplants aboard a UFO years ago. They're prolly ready to confess to the Nazi bombing of Pearl Harbor by now. tsk tsk

Torture has never had anything to do with seeking truth. Not during Pope Gregory's time and most certainly not today.

The fruits of torture were always to serve a purpose for persecuting "heretics"/opposition to oppressive and corrupt regimes then, and the same is true today with a lot of 9/11 propaganda insulating a military dictatorship from the truth.

It;s closed down already ( that is, the State Department office for closing it down).

150 million to refurbish it for present and future political prisoners.

Quote:

Obama promised to close Guantánamo. Instead, he's made it worse

Facing deteriorating conditions and the hopelessness of their legal abyss, detainees are starving themselves in protest

by Murtaza Hussain

....The 44-year-old British resident and father of four [Shaker Aamer] has spent over 11 years incarcerated at Guantánamo despite being cleared for release as early as 2007. To this day never charged with a crime, Aamer is just one of hundreds of detainees who remain imprisoned in Guantánamo. Despite running on an explicit campaign promise to shut down the island prison which has become a symbol of the abuses of the "war on terror", President Obama has continued to preside over its operation.

And by recent accounts, under his tenure, the conditions for prisoners there – from both a physical and legal standpoint – have become markedly worse....

Instead of Closing, Gitmo to Receive Major UpgradesPentagon Set for Major Modernization Project for Prisonby Jason Ditz, March 21, 2013

Pentagon officials say that a plan being pushed would spend $150 million upgrading the facility, creating a new hospital which is going to be helpful, since so many of the detainees are already in failing health and are seemingly going to stay there until they die of old age.

Though the White House insists they remain “committed” to closing Gitmo they’ve made no effort to actually do so in years, and have even closed the State Department office that was supposed to find places to send the detainees....